༺ Divergence (1) ༻
Vera dragged Renee out of the shack to put an end to this commotion.
In the alley in front of the shack, Vera had a troubled face as he watched Renee in a frenzy.
“Did you see that, Vera? She’s a total fraud! What did she say again? I brought you a meal, so why don’t you eat it and calm down? Ha! Who said I would eat the food that she brought?”
Say that after getting rid of your drool.
Watching Renee ramble incredulously while drooling, a lot of thoughts crossed Vera’s mind.
‘Is her sense of smell weird, too?’
She seemed to have other issues aside from her vision and taste buds.
While he was contemplating, Renee urged Vera again.
“Vera, you didn’t call me out to tell me that I went overboard, did you? If you’re taking her side, I will seriously…!”
The way her words trailed before closing her mouth shut showed a hint of anxiety. She approached slowly with her arms crossed as if to say, ‘You’d better answer well’.
Watching her, Vera unconsciously smiled, his eyes widening at the sudden realization of his condition.
‘…My mind.’
Is getting clearer.
It felt like the fog that had clouded his mind the entire time was lifted. He hadn’t felt the anxiety that had been plaguing him ever since he entered the hallucination.
As he thought back to when this started, a clear answer came to him.
‘…Saint.’
After Renee’s arrival, he became that way after watching Renee getting so worked up.
Vera glanced at Renee with a clouded expression, and soon a small smile appeared on his lips.
It was a moment when he was reminded that she was his only light. A moment when he realized that the light which guided him from straying onto the wrong path was right here.
Such feelings pushed Vera to reply tenderly.
“…I am always on your side, Saint.”
“But why does a different woman appear in your dream?”
Renee hit the bullseye.
Flinch—
Vera trembled.
“Hm? What excuses are you going to make, huh? This is called cheating! Cheating! You know?!”
She said with a scoff.
Vera let out a cough and put on a strained smile.
Renee’s rage led Vera to overcome his hesitation, and he spoke with a firm resolve.
“I am unquestionably on your side.”
“…Are you sure?”
Her face was tinged with doubt. Yet, on the other hand, her cheeks were flushed red.
Watching that, Vera felt that it was time to tell her his secret.
“Saint.”
“What?”
A curt tone that expressed her dissatisfaction.
Vera contemplated on what she said before coming up with an answer.
“Didn’t you ask me to tell you about this dream?”
Renee paused. Vera’s expression mellowed due to her reaction.
“It may be a bit of a long story.”
It couldn’t be short because he had to tell her everything about his past life in order to explain this dream.
“Will that be alright?”
She asked him seriously. Renee had a hunch that this was the moment she would hear about the vision that the Orgus had shown her.
To put it simply, it was time for Vera to reveal what he had been hiding so fiercely.
Renee decided to confess what she had been holding back from saying, so that Vera wouldn’t be afraid to tell her.
“…Vera.”
“Please say it.”
“Vera has lived longer than I thought, right?”
Vera’s eyes widened. His hand tightened around hers.
Renee swallowed hard, thinking about her speculations that ‘Vera is much older than me’ or ‘Vera is faking his age because he turned into a child for some reason before coming to the Holy Kingdom’ and uttered.
“In the slums. Not here, but the real slums that we visited before.”
“…Yes.”
“I met the Orgus and saw a vision of Vera in the past…”
Renee thought that not telling Vera, who chose to be honest, was equal to betrayal, so she added.
“I’m sure it’s in the distant past, but in that vision Vera had a more mature voice than now.”
She still didn’t know the context, so Vera might be able to clarify it for her.
“I will believe everything Vera says, so can you be honest with me?”
Renee raised her head. With a determined expression, she looked at the blurry figure that resembled Vera.
Vera was greatly moved by her appearance, her speech, and the realization that she wasn’t always clueless about him.
Seeing the Orgus’ vision during his last moment meant that she saw his horrible state in the past, but he was very grateful to her for showing him her unwavering love despite all that.
Vera nodded. His lips quivered briefly as his mind conjured words.
He was still unsure of ‘how to bring it up’ even though he made the decision to tell her.
Vera, who had been agonizing for a while, steadied his heart and spoke.
“…I went back in time.”
He first revealed that he was a regressor.
“And that woman was the Saint from the previous round.”
He continued by revealing that fact.
Let’s do this.
“…Pardon?”
Flinching, Renee replied with a dumb look on her face.
***
A long, long story ensued.
About the choices he made and the path he walked after first receiving the Stigma in the slums, as well as how it ended.
Renee’s expression changed to one of surprise as she drew a clearer link between Vera’s story and what she saw in the Orgus’ vision.
“I obtained the Stigma and satiated my greed.”
There was disbelief.
“I unified the slums and built a castle out of my greed.”
There was shock.
“…At the end of such a life, I met the Saint from the first round.”
As the story progressed, the part about Vera’s encounter with her from the first round made him embarrassed.
How could he not be? How embarrassing would it be to reveal that Renee had been insulting herself?
“…Therefore, I came back in time. And that’s how I found the Saint in this round.”
Thus, Renee listened to his story with a reddened face.
“…I don’t want the Saint to suffer such a fate again. I want to protect you and resemble your light even a little. That’s why I looked for you.”
At the end of his story, only one emotion emerged.
It was doubt.
Renee scowled. Her voice sounded grave as she spoke.
“…Vera.”
Vera answered her nervously.
“Yes, go ahead.”
It was the first time he had explained his past this candidly, so he was nervous.
But the next question instantly wiped away all of those feelings.
“Don’t you think it’s strange?”
“What is?”
“Let me ask you first. Do you know how to give up your Apostle’s power?”
Renee was scowling so hard that she was unable to contort her face much further as she spoke.
…She couldn’t help it.
“I think it’s strange. As soon as we receive Stigma, all of the instructions to use the power are imprinted in our minds, which enables us to wield it with ease…”
Is what Vera said just now not going against that obvious fact?
“…I don’t know how to give up my power. If I had known that, I would have given it up the day I first received my Stigma.”
She, who was knowledgeable about her Apostle’s power and its usage, didn’t know how, but Vera said that she gave up her power at her first round and entered the slums.
As far as she knew, there was no way to remove the Stigma that was granted to them, but Vera made it sound doable.
Flinch—
Vera paused.
He replied with a shaky voice and a perplexed expression.
“By seeking the Gods’ help…”
“Do you know how? No, is it even possible to meet the Gods? Even in the Holy Kingdom, Rohan, who is the closest to the Gods, only hears their voices in the form of fragments, doesn’t he?”
Vera’s pupils shook.
His heart sank the moment he listened to Renee ask him those questions.
Upon reflection, she had a point.
He didn’t even know how to relinquish the Stigma, his power.
But why did he think it was ‘undoubtedly’ possible?
How did Renee from the first round manage to do that?
Wobble—
Vera staggered backwards.
Renee went on to say.
“…How strange. It is indeed strange.”
There was something that became more certain from Vera’s reaction. She felt a strange sense of discrepancy while listening to the story that was turning into a conviction.
“Vera.”
“…Yes, yes.”
“Is everything you remember true?”
She knew nothing about the first round. She had never experienced anything like it before, after all.
However, she could confidently point out that something was odd.
“…About me from the first round. How did I manage to survive the slum being blind and powerless? Vera knows better than anyone that it isn’t a place where I can just beg for my life. No, more than that, what did the Holy Kingdom do while I was gone?”
What did the Holy Kingdom do?
The Holy Kingdom she knew was never one to simply watch such events unfold.
“Even though the Holy Emperor had passed, the other Apostles would still be around, no? Didn’t Vera say that all nine Apostles- including the Apostle of Death, the next Apostle of Judgment, and Vera himself-had descended into the world?”
There were seven people, excluding Vera and her.
It was strange that Vera believed there would be a war on the continent to fight over her, and that was the reason she gave up her power in the first round.
“…Vera also knows that, right? Except for the Ancient Species, there isn’t a living being on the continent that the Apostles can’t defeat. After all, we are half-god.”
The power associated with the number of Apostles wasn’t additive.
“With each new Apostle, the combination of our powers causes our strength to double. Since everyone on this continent is aware of this, no one is targeting the Holy Kingdom.”
That explained why that tiny land, whose entire territory consisted of just one fortress, could survive for such a long time.
“…Why did Vera believe that a war would be started over me?”
Why couldn’t Vera, who was smarter than she was and could evaluate numerous variables at once, know about it?
While she was waiting for an answer, Vera staggered.
“Vera!”
As Renee tried to support him, Vera was able to maintain his balance before he went to sweep his ruffled face.
It was because the more he listened, the more questions he had and his mind was filled with a throbbing pain.
Not only did he miss the obvious, but he also misunderstood it, leaving his mind in shambles.
That was when Vera realized.
‘My awareness…’
Is twisted.
There were holes in his memories. This was a false memory.
It was a piece that didn’t even fit properly, as if someone had forced it in.
As soon as he realized it, he continued his deduction.
‘From when did it start?’
I don’t know.
There weren’t enough clues to determine when his memory began to distort and what caused it.
But.
‘Who…’
Who did this?
The answer for that came up ridiculously easy.
Every twisted memory he recognized was related to one person.
Vera turned his head to the shack.
Toward the figure who was sitting alone inside it.
Vera kept staring at it with a dazed expression, his mind racing.
If there was someone who had the ability to distort his mind…
‘…Renee.’
She was the only person capable of doing that.
